Thomas
Adès is the ideal artist for Milton Court, and Milton Court the ideal venue for
Thomas Adès. In the few weeks the new hall has been open it has been put
through its paces by all manner of ensembles, from large choirs to string
quartets. The acoustic is good, but it has its own identity, which hasn’t
always suited the performers, at least not until they’ve gotten used to its
ways. The sound is very immediate, giving instrumental colours an almost
tactile quality. It is resonant without being especially warm. Everything comes
across with real clarity, and even at the quietest dynamics, the sound is
always arresting.

Much
the same could be said of Adès, both as composer and pianist. His music is
filled with dark, translucent colours, rarely abrasive but always imposing.
Whatever dynamic or tempo he employs, he always ensures a clarity of texture
that gives his music a sense of openness and honesty. And at the piano, too, he
is always projecting textures and colours, propelled by a skittish energy, but
giving every element within the texture its due exposure. So the Milton Court
acoustic plays to his strengths. The sound here may not be enveloping and
comfortable, like at the Wigmore, but Adès has no interest in comfort. He
specialises in music with an edge, textures with focus that communicate
directly to the listener, and this hall is clearly in sympathy with his
intentions.

The
programme opened with Britten’s early Suite for Violin and Piano, Op. 6. By the
standards of mature Britten, this is radical music, filled with Bartók-inspired
acerbic textures. But coming from Adès and Anthony Marwood it sounded even more
extreme. Marwood played most of the work with a bright, penetrating tone,
qualities again emphasised by the hall. Adès followed suit, giving the piano
part a buzzing, electric quality, jittery and impulsive, but also filled out
with well-weighted and fully-sustained sonorities. Almost everything that
followed was from recent times, yet this 1934 work, in Adès and Marwood’s
hands, came across as the most modern on the programme.

Gerald
Barry doesn’t give a lot away with the title of his clarinet and piano work Low, nor with his seven word programme
note “It is sometimes high and sometimes low”, but the piece is fairly self-explanatory.
The clarinet and piano are equal partners in the duet, and for the most part
the piano plays a single line, often in rhythmic unison and at an equal dynamic
with the clarinet. The rhythms are fast and irregular, and get faster as the
work goes on. In fact, it turns into a feat of endurance towards the end for
clarinettist Matthew Hunt, and although the strain showed in the last minute or
two, he made it safely to the end.

Lieux retrouvés is a
major work for cello and piano, in which Adès explores a range of involved
textures and ideas over the course of four substantial movements. Adès’ writing
for the cello is as idiomatic and imaginative as his writing for the piano, and
a range of extended techniques are employed, but never merely for effect. The
piano part owes much to Ligeti’s Etudes, like them it often relies on flowing
but metrically ambiguous textures. Cellist Louise Hopkins struggled with much
of this music, understandably given its obvious difficulty, and her intonation
was unsteady throughout. Fortunately her work in the second half of the concert
was far better.

A Soldier’s Tale was
on the abrasive side: needlessly difficult listening. The performance was very
much led by Marwood, his violin counter-rhythms dominating even the more
regular piano part, although Adès was able to fit it in beneath without too
much trouble. But there was little sense of ensemble here, and the three
players seemed in opposition, each trying to spit out their rhythms more
brutally and abrasively than the others. All of Stravinsky’s clever rhythms
came through, but few of his clever harmonies.

Catch is
the nearest Adès’ music gets to comedy I suspect. It is written for piano trio
with itinerant clarinet. The clarinettist is offstage at the start and spends
the whole work mobile, coming and going, playing backstage and in the hall. But
Adès isn’t playing this for laughs. The focus of attention is always the three
stationary players, and their music seems both dictated the clarinet’s
obbligato line and the player’s position relative to the ensemble. Adès’
textures are as clear and beguiling as ever, although his motivations for once
are obscure in the extreme.

To
end, the Court Studies freely adapted
from Adès’ opera The Tempest. Any
notions of levity, however slight, were immediately quashed by this very
serious music. The programme note tells us that the music comes from scenes of
dialogue and argument, but for the most part this work seems homophonic and
unified in its textures and outlook. What great music it is! No tricks here,
and no gimmicks, just well-conceived and well-realised musical ideas, expertly
paced and, as ever with Adès, expertly voiced among the four instruments.

Milton
Court is clearly going to be a great asset for the Guildhall School of Music
and Drama, and its uses are going to stretch far beyond just student recitals.
The theme of tonight’s event was prestige, the school showing off both its
former students (all four were ex-GSMD) and its fabulous new facilities. In the
cut-throat world of London music colleges, where getting an upper hand on your
rivals can have significant benefits, this approach is understandable, and I
was certainly impressed. The event was the first in an “Alumni Recital Series”,
with appearances to follow from Anne Sofie von Otter, Tasmin Little and Toby
Spence. Star performers indeed, and in this exciting new performing space, all
are sure to shine.

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Gavin Dixon is a writer, journalist, editor and blogger specialising in classical music. He writes reviews and articles for a number of publications and websites. Gavin has a PhD on the Symphonies of Alfred Schnittke and is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is also a member of the editorial team behind the ‘Alfred Schnittke Collected Works’ edition, which recently began publication in St Petersburg. More information on Gavin’s writing activities can be found at his website: www.gavindixon.info